Yes, Scott M, it does make them reactionaries. You can tell it by their clothes, memes, slogans, and methods--they ape a fabled time of revolution that didn't really exist.

I agree so much with Downs when he says this discussion "exposes the contradictions." Socialism and PC have now been substituted for capitalism and patriotism because the left spent 30 years "teaching in" to expose the contradictions within those systems.

Trouble is, all human systems have contradictions. So do you want individual freedom or domination by experts? Capitalism or socialism? Free speech or speech codes?

Humans do use delusions to soften the harshness of reality during their lives. That is why we developed courts and laws with tradition, structure and memory of the rules to be applied when a conflict arises due to selfish demands. Demanding that everyone be taken care of by a Socialist group is the delusion that most runs good people into the ditch.

The Demo schoolteachers vs GOP-TP supply siders "battle" in WI does not add up to a real dialectical struggle. It's more like...PC, squishy WASP bureaucrats vs confused frat boy-WASP biz majors, who mistake running the Govt. for managing their small business . Collegetown scandal. Not revolution.

I'm pretty sure this guy is still pickin' that playground wedgie out of his ass.

This is a really typical attitude for most in the UW community: Don't allow anyone with perspectives different from yours to be heard.

If they do pronounce a view you find threatening, don't address the issue (instead make a claim about their childhood that's in fact much more likely to be true about your own camp!). Whatever you do, don't let yourself really think about anything because vilifying others is much less difficult.

Yes, I know exactly what Downs is talking about. Any honest person would.

So, J, I'd honestly like to know. WASP = derogatory term with you, correct? That's the way you keep using it. I'm honestly trying to muddle through you're l33t ep33n comments, but I'd like to get that clear before trying again.

If there is the slightest wisp of impropriety (the phony Koch call doesn't rise to that standard), the GOP in Wisconsin are toast. They know it. On the other hand, they did win the election quite handily and seem to be following the letter of the law. Plus...they won. Deal with it.

Standard academic ectomorph. No effort has ever been made to get that tall wavy frame under control. Or to project in a clear and measured way. Or to reign in the loopy hand gestures. It's up to others, lesser beings like students and the awful peasantry, to torture their way to whatever meaning is hidden in the forest of his academic affectations and total twittery. And a very successful life it has been and he'll die with a smile on his face and not a single doubt in his mind that mankind has been blessed to be the recipient of his benevolent condescension.

The Badger Herald is a POS paper, even for something student-produced. The writing and reporting quality of every is, well, horrendous. If I was comparing it to a "conservative" paper that's national, it would be much more Washington Times than WSJ. Most of the time, what they write is unbearable to read--not because of the content, but because of the quality of the writing.

Downs is a classical Liberal - closest in modern terms to a libertarian - and that makes him a conservative on campus, at least on economic and individualism issues. On liberty, he is more "liberal" than most actual liberals. He's not dumb - he knows how to talk to the liberals that he's surrounded by - but he's also not afraid. He nearly single-handedly got the campus to voluntarily abandon its speech codes. Since then, his biggest personal cause is *real,* not PC, freedom of expression.

He was my favorite professor and completely rocked my world when I entered his criminal law (undergrad) class as a get-along liberal.

I disagree with him about free speech in that there is one thing above dissent and that is truth whether in support or dissent of the government.

I'm not sure if public employee unions protesting qualifies as actual dissent. They are the government. It's more of a union vs management fight. When the citizens protest these government expendatures, that's dissent.

True classical liberals are the only thing like a conservative that is allowed on most campuses. There are a few of us left, or that got through the door before it was bolted shut by the far left zombies.

I wonder if people are actually misunderstanding what Downs is saying here. Maybe the reference to Marx right away throws people off. He is deliberately choosing Marx because (a) they don't expect it of him, and (b) it's a dig at liberals who revere Marx even though he does not.

The point he goes on to make, about dissent and free speech, is directed at the people there on campus, who would rather not listen to the pro-Walker side of the debate. He is especially pushing back against the thought that there is something wrong (i.e., lack of "solidarity" or being offensive) with raising the pro-Walker arguments and taking them seriously, even among people who almost uniformly disagree with them.

This is why I prefer "left-wing" and "right-wing" to "liberal" and "conservative". There are plenty of areas where right-wingers favor liberalization, and plenty of areas where left-wingers are opposed to any change.

@Scott M, if you're still hanging around, yes it does. In 21st century America it's the alleged "progressives" who are trying to "stand athwart history yelling 'stop'." If there really is an afterlife, then Bill Buckley must be smiling.

Related to Scott Walker and the political economy, I read just now that 13 of the 14 "fleebagger" Democrat state senators are subject to recall petitions. Can someone who is familiar with the Wisconsin state constitution tell me whether this changes the number of senators required to make up a quorum? I mean, if two senators are recalled does the magic number become 19, vice 20? (For you math-challenged liberals out there, 19 > 0.6 * 31.)